@socketwench - I always rankle when people group ST3 in the "Bad Trek" category. It's a good movie. It's not the Pulp Sci-Fi of TMP, or Moby Dick in Space like TWOK, but it is a funeral dirge for Spock. Everything is being done to get Spock's body back until they realize he's alive. It's slower, more solemn. As is right for a funeral dirge.
Even at the end we don't know we're gettnig him back, so it's treated solemnly.
It's one of my faves.
But that one with the whales, now....